We certainly enjoy receiving correspondence from those who regularly peruse our website (alleghenyinstitute.org). And many times, these correspondents, responding to one of our many Policy Briefs and/or At Large columns share information that is value-added.
Such is the case with a recent email note from Chris Mooney of Whitehall, responding to the At Large column of Nov. 5, “Electric vehicle codswallop” (https://www.alleghenyinstitute.org/electric-vehicle-codswallop/).
“The cost of the EV (electric vehicle) is only the beginning,” Mooney reminded. “No one is bothering to mention that the cost to replace the entire oil-powered transportation system will be very expensive.”
As would be the push to fully electrify our homes and businesses.
“First, my suburban house, like many others, was built in 1956 and has no provisions for an electric stove, water heater, clothes dryer or electric heating,” Mooney said. “[Most of] those appliances all run on gas in this part of the country and [just about] every house uses a gas furnace.
“My house has a 150-amp, single-phase service panel that is 25 years old and already maxed out,” Mooney continues. “I would have to replace the entire system … . The local electric utility will have to upgrade its entire grid to handle the increase in capacity that would be needed.”
A second salient point from Mooney is the paucity of off-street parking and houses with garages to charge EVs.
“Someone will have to pay for all of those public charging posts that will need to be installed in the sidewalks in these residential areas, along with the upgraded grid to power them,” the writer noted. “That doesn’t even include the cost of installing charging stations at every business that has off-street parking.”
Then there’s the shibboleth that EVs don’t pollute. Mooney reminds that EVs merely shift the emissions from the tailpipe to the electric power plant.
“Where is all of that electricity going to come from after the sun goes down?” Mooney asks. “It will have to come from the same sources that generate it now.
“By the way, the last time that I checked, solar panels are still the most expensive way to generate electricity and windmills have already been proven to be expensive and unreliable,” Mooney added, noting how Pittsburgh is one of the cloudiest cities in North America, making solar panels even less cost-effective.
“Here, in coal country, we are standing on three layers of recoverable shale gas, and we are also the home of Westinghouse Nuclear. All of those fuels are much less costly for power generation. They are already proven technology.”
Mooney notes that the more expensive electricity gets, the more EVs will cost to operate.
And lest we forget this fact, Mooney reminds:
“Even if the entire country were to suddenly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to zero tomorrow, it would only shave 0.3 degrees off the projected temperature 100 years from now, according to the International Panel on Climate Change’s highly inflated numbers.
“At the same time electric rates will skyrocket and reliability will plummet,” Mooney offers, adding that, in some instances, it was warmer 100 years ago than it is today, “when wooden ships sailed to the rocky coast of Antarctica, and it was substantially warmer 1,000 years ago, when Greenland was covered by forests.”
Chris Mooney’s bottom line:
“The current global warming hysteria is based on faulty data manipulation by a cabal of zealots. Twenty years ago, their predictions were wrong. But instead of admitting their errors, they continue to peddle this demonstrably false narrative.”
Thanks for the letter, Chris. And thanks for further exposing the codswallop of the push for electric vehicles and the full electrification of society.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
